Fashionable ornaments that threaten your oral health.
Some world-renowned artists, who accumulate millions of followers on social networks, have made dental jewelry and grillz fashionable.
Singers such as Rosalía, Madonna, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Travis Scott, or Miley Cyrus wear them, promoting an imitation effect in thousands of people... with very negative consequences for their oral health, especially in the case of grillz.
We have to differentiate dental jewelry from grillz.
Jewelry is usually small diamonds or gold and silver designs glued semi-permanently on the tooth surface without prior preparation. According to this expert, this type of adornment has few implications for dental health, but when the design is very extensive or voluminous, it can generate wounds on the inside of the lips and/or cheeks; in addition, it is essential to maintain strict plaque control, since these small pieces of jewelry favor the accumulation of bacterial plaque around them. However, if it is done by a dentist and extreme care is taken with hygiene, it is a practically harmless beauty resource.
Dental piercings are small pieces of jewelry, usually made of Swarovski crystal, silver, or gold, purchased from suppliers and placed using special adhesives used by dentists. In these cases, treating the tooth for a few seconds with an acid compound is necessary, which is why it is not recommended at home.
Conversely, Grillz is generally more giant ornaments that totally or partially surround the tooth. They can be designed and placed by a dentist or structures compared online or in jewelers that fit directly over our teeth. When made by a dentist, they are individualized pieces that intimately fit the shape of our teeth; however, the jewelry purchased online or from jewelers is usually malleable, and you do them yourself by heating them beforehand. As dentists, we strongly advise against this option because of the risks it can cause.
The essential work of the dentist.
The oral and dental impact of these fashionable resources depends, above all, on the mediation or not of a dentist. It is more common for the placement of dental jewelry to be supervised by a dentist, so this means that aspects such as allergies to metals, the ease of maintaining proper hygiene while wearing them, and factors associated with the bite will be taken into account. However, in the case of grillz, it is more common for them to be purchased online or designed by a jeweler, and essential oral health factors are often not taken into account, increasing the risk of enormous discomfort for the patient in the form of allergies, inflammation and joint pain in the jaw.
Although their use is generally discouraged, the dentist's jewelry placement on the tooth should not impact the patient's oral health. We should remember that dentists constantly bond structures onto teeth through orthodontic brackets, dental veneers, or crowns. Jewelry would be just another decorative element, and its rejection is more a matter of professional taste than biology. However, with grillz the situation is different since they are more invasive and require a careful assessment of other aspects, such as their size, composition, and how they contact the other teeth.
